Everything Black | Harry Potter

6. It'll Be Alright

Morning was hell.

"Did you see his face?"

"Did you see his scar?"

After almost a year on the run, two months with the Dursleys, and clever disguises donned when traveling to Diagon Alley, Harry had almost forgotten how uncomfortable and irritating all the attention was. Whispers followed him from the moment he left his dormitory. People lining up outside classrooms stood on tiptoe to get a look at him or doubled back to pass him in the corridors again, staring. Harry wished they wouldn't, because he was trying to concentrate pretending like he didn't already know his way around the castle.

Other first years had already taken to following him to their classes because his feet were just a bit too sure of themselves.

Fun Fact: there were a hundred and forty-two staircases at Hogwarts: wide, sweeping ones; narrow, rickety ones; some that led somewhere different on a Friday; some with a vanishing step halfway up that you had to remember to jump. Then there were doors that wouldn't open unless you asked politely, or tickled them in exactly the right place, and doors that weren't really doors at all, but solid walls just pretending. It was also very hard to remember – if you hadn't already spent six years living at the castle – where anything was, because it all seemed to move around a lot.

And when most of the time you don't give much thought to these kinds of things, this had led to some very strange theories as to how exactly Harry always seemed to know where they were going.

His favourite so far had been he was actually a reincarnation of Godric Gryffindor himself, which explained how he'd been able to defeat Voldemort at such a young age. Obviously, he used ancient and long forgotten magic, which he'd been able to access through the magic in the core of Godric's spirit. Or something of the like. Honestly, Harry had found it hard to follow along with the logic, but hey, he's not exactly one to talk.

He did – as the hat so eloquently put – unknowingly and accidently get himself sent backwards in time, dragging another with him, with all of their memories somehow intact.

Harry was pretty sure somewhere in the universe, that was a least seven cardinal rules alone that they'd violated.

Once Harry had managed remember not to lead the way, there were the classes themselves. As Harry quickly found out, first year magic –while incredibly easy and reassuring– was so incredibly, mind-numbingly boring.

Astronomy every Wednesday at midnight was a good time to unwind and just watch the stars. The three times a week they went out to the greenhouses for Herbology, was only good for 'getting to know' Neville (read: forcing friendship upon him because I left it too late the first time and that boy deserves so much better). History of Magic was even more boring than Before, which Harry hadn't really thought was possible, but there you go.

Charms was also – unfortunately – fairly boring. Much to Harry's eternal embarrassment, when Flickwick took the roll call during their first class, he gave an excited squeak and toppled out of sight once he reached Harry's name.

He had enjoyed the class in a general sense, but while it may have been one of the more exciting classes for an 11-year-old who'd never know about magic before, as a 17-year-old who'd only two months ago been using more complicated magic than most his age and above were used to? Re-learning how to cast Lumos was not exactly attention engaging.

On the bright side, he'd earned 10 house points for casting it on the first go.

He may have also accidentally blinded the class.

But that's neither here nor there.

Professor McGonagall was again different. Eleven-year-old Harry had been quite right to think she wasn't a teacher to cross. Strict and clever, she gave the first years a talking-to the moment they sat down in her first class.